Interview with the Rev. Craig Purchase of Joliet Illinois regarding warehouse work in Will County

At the Warehouse Workers for Justice Press Conference in August of 2010, Will County News had the opportunity to interview the Rev. Craig Purchase--pastor of Mt. Zion Full Gospel Tabernacle and also recent president of the local Rainbow Push Coalition--regarding how he learned about the group Warehouse Workers for Justice and the issue of temp work in Will County Warehouses.




I also asked how warehouse work affects the people in his congregation and whether warehouse workers utilized the food pantry he ran. 


Watch the interview below:









If you would like more information, read the Warehouse Worker's Full Report, "Bad Jobs in Goods Movement: Warehouse Work in Will County, Illinois."


Also, following the release of this report by local media, John Grueling, President and CEO of the Will County Center for Economic Development wrote a September 10, 2010 letter to the editor of the Joliet Herald News in which he wrote: "The logistics industry is a growing and important segment of our local economy. Of the 250,054 jobs based in Will County, 20,285, or 8.1 percent, work in warehouses. The average wage for these jobs in Will County is $14.17 an hour or $29,400 a year."


Will County News emailed Grueling to ask where his statistics came from and whether the statistics were available online for everyone to see. 


Greuling responded and provided links to Will County Workforce Investment Board's Will County Economic Update, 2nd Quarter, 2010, from which the data quoted in his letter is drawn.  Warehouse Workers--from floor movers to forklift drivers-- fall under the transportation and material movers category in the report. 


Warehouse work is an important issue in Will County and Will County News encourages all citizens to read both reports in their entirety.   

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